


waking up

by carrionqueen (nightquill), nightquill



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Destroy Ending, F/M, Gen, Headcanon, Lazarus Project v2.0, Post ME3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightquill/pseuds/carrionqueen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightquill/pseuds/nightquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it wasn’t like waking up. not really. it was more like having your soul dragged back through the fires of hell and into the world again, where it was heavy and solid and painful - God, the pain - but the fact that it was Miranda who’d found her kind of made it okay.</p>
<p>Elisabeth Shepard had pressed the red button. Several times. With bullets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	waking up

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of headcanon herein. Mentions of major character death. Spoilers for ME3. I have not played any DLC for ME3 so if my lore is sketchy, this is why ^_^

it wasn't like waking up. not really. it was more like having your soul dragged back through the fires of hell and into the world again, where it was heavy and solid and painful - God, the pain - but the fact that it was Miranda who'd found her kind of made it okay.

Elisabeth Shepard had pressed the red button. Several times. With bullets. 

\---

"Do you really think I'd have left the station without this data? I rebuilt her once. I can do it again. Get me a team."

Classic Miranda. Shepard couldn't move anything or she'd have smiled - piecing together what she could of the picture using only her ears, which seemed to be the only sense that was still functioning, she imagined the woman strutting around and giving orders. 

That had to be the sound of tyres on rubble - yes, and that was boots hitting the ground. Tent poles. Cables. Tarps. Expensive machinery, by the way some salarian was fretting over the grunts that were 'manhandling' it. Miranda was pulling together a field hospital out of nothing. 

"Hackett, if I see any media personnel around here, I am going to shoot them. This has to stay quiet. If we fail..."

Do you know what that would do to morale? Shepard finished the sentence in her head, wishing she had visuals, wishing she could lift her arm to reach for the ex-Cerberus officer. 

\---

Oddly, Shepard was no stranger to being rebuilt. It was interesting to have her brain intact and sort of conscious as it happened, though, even if she was drifting between sentience and the most absurd dream sequences ever constructed by a mind. On the day she actually woke though, with her eyes and everything, that was different.

A salarian doctor loomed overhead and calmly checked her pupils with a light. He waved his omni-tool over her head and her vision fizzed with static - static. Jesus. What were they doing to her?

Her mouth worked itself open and a wordless unh escaped her lips. In response she was dosed once more with sedatives. 

\---

"You can't be in here. Garrus - security! Get him out of here!" Miranda's voice rang and Liz opened her eyes. No static this time, but a small, blue readout in the corner of her vision told her that her limbs were functioning and that they had integrated comfortably into her natural system. 

"How long, Miranda?" a gravelly, dual-toned voice tore her attention from the readout and had her mind scrambling to figure out how to work new limbs. "How long have you had her in here like some kind of lab rat? Did you plan on telling me?" 

His voice was a snarl that shot through her ears and straight to the pit of her stomach. He was alive. She was alive, and so was he. This wasn't something she'd even considered - her fingers flexed and she tentatively bought her arm up into her field of vision. 

"We... we've had her here for five months."

His laugh was bitter. "Let me see her."

"We don't even know if she's conscious yet, it's all new technology - we had to start from nothing because of the Crucible, Garrus, you know that,"

"I'm awake," Liz croaked, her voice not dissimilar to the Turian's at first. It was her voice, though, and as she swallowed and coughed it became cleared. "I'm awake," she repeated. Garrus shoved Miranda aside and stalked into the theatre. 

She couldn't feel details, like texture or warmth, not just yet, but the pressure of his hand encasing hers, her new, silver fingertips, was like a trigger for her tears. Her eyes were wet and her chest began to heave - shallow breaths that turned into sobs as they slowed. Metallic fingers - hers - squeezed back. 

Miranda was on the opposite side of her bed, hurriedly going over medical charts and monitoring her vitals. Liz released Garrus and reached out with her other hand. She grabbed the woman's wrist.   
"Miranda, it's okay. I'm okay."

"We don't know that yet, Shepard," Miranda murmured, eyes not meeting Shepard's, her voice cold. "Your limbs aren't rejecting, and your artificial organs are doing well, too, but we need to run some more tests before -"

"Miranda."

The dark-haired woman looked to Shepard finally, eyes falling on her old Commander's face. She broke into a smile, and the smile swiftly became a cascade of tears. "There's no way you could have died twice and come back perfectly. I - perhaps I've been a little over protective but - Shepard, I -"

"Shut up and get over here," Liz snapped, pulling Miranda into a tight hug. Her spine was working too, apparently, which meant she was better off than she'd thought she'd be. She twisted herself up into Miranda's body, burying her nose in the woman's collar. "How can I ever thank someone who rebuilt me twice? God, Miri - I haven't got the vocabulary to tell you how much that means. I'm alive because of you."

Miranda said nothing but hugged back. "I'll give you two some time," she whispered quietly, breaking free of the hold. "Don't try to walk yet, please," she added as she slipped from the room. 

\---

She turned back to the Turian that was practically sitting on top of her, watching every little flicker of movement as she tested out her limbs. "So I hear I'm more machine than woman, now," she finally muttered, and Garrus took that as a cue to take her robot hands in his and squeeze them tight. She felt it. She smiled and sobbed again. 

"You're supposed to be dead."

She squeezed his hands back until he hissed at the pressure and she smirked. "If you'd prefer, I can arrange some kind of dramatic death,"

He shook his head.

If Turians could grow careless stubble, he'd have it. He smelt of cigar smoke and dextro-tequila, his clothes haphazardly thrown on and his clan paint was smeared unevenly down the scarred side of his face. He looked like shit. She told him so. They laughed. 

He kissed her on the tip of her nose - which, luckily, had been so broken beforehand that the subsequent breaks of re-entering earth atmo aboard the Citadel had only added to it's graceless hook - and then her eyelids. He told her that her eyes were kind of orange now. Miranda ducked her head in to add that it was only temporary while she ironed out the kinks in the software. Liz said to leave them.

It wasn't perfect, though. EDI was gone. Joker was even more bitter than before and hadn't left his apartment in months - Garrus promised to check on him as soon as he got back. Some of the others... hadn't made it. No one could find Jack. Shepard had missed Anderson's funeral service, and Mordin's. Jacob had named his baby girl Elisabeth in her honor. Wrex had named the first of his brood Urdnot Solus. 

"What about us?"

"Hmm?" Liz prompted, toying with the sleeve of Garrus' shirt. 

"Are... you still... Ah, we'll talk about it later. You're only just awake."

"Garrus - I'm still yours." And she meant it.


End file.
